I fell in the end. I held off for a bit, but then I was having trouble falling asleep, and I was a bit depressed about my earlier slip, and I just gave up. I've been so careful with my Shemiras Einayim in the last few days, and yet I was still mz"l. I'm annoyed with myself- its erev yom tov, and I was on 13 days- the furthest I've got for a while. Now I'm worried I'm just going to slip back into my old mindset- just giving up really easily. Maybe I was too overconfident, but I really don't know how I was triggered. When I was actually doing the Aveira I was conjuring up images in my mind, but before that... I really don't know.

On day 4, and back on the chart B'H!!!
Last night and this morning wasn't easy, but B'H I held on (or more like Hashem held me on!) I'm going back to school on Monday, IYH should get easier then- I've got exams soon, so I'll probably be quite busy. I heard a line once- 'Satan finds work for idle hands.' It's true- personal experience!

I take that back- I lost again, literally 20 minutes ago. I thought I'd held on, but then the Yetzer Hara came back, and after 20 minutes of lusting, I fell. Despite my filter, I still managed to find images, and then proceeded to be mz'l. I feel like i want to quit. What's the point of trying again and again, only to fall repeatedly? Will I ever be free of this? Why do I have to put on the same facade every day of my life? I'm going to mincha soon. There, I'll probably beg Hashem to forgive me, all the while knowing that within a week I'll probably have fallen again. I feel like a joke. Here was little me, thinking I'd beaten the Yetzer Hara last night. But no. Of course not. I'm back in the filth. Again.

It seems like you already know what the problem is, that you thought you beat the yetzer harah.We are never going to beat the yetzer harah until we die 'al taamim b'atzmicha ad yom moishcha' the only thing that we can do is win some battles one at a time.If we think that we beat the yetzer harah after 40 or 400 days clean then he has us right where he wants us, ready to fall and become extremely depressed because we thought that we had already won.
Also the things that you were saying about trying and trying again, why do you think hat if you keep trying and trying again then you'll keep falling? I think that if you keep trying again and again then you'll realize how to control yourself and it will only get easier from there. (again not free from it, but it'll get alot easier)

and anyway this is all not nogeia because why are we talking about the future? all we have is now, and just because 20 minutes ago you fell dosent mean that you lost, just that you lost the battle and who surrenders after losing one measly battle? especially if you go look at your track record of an almost perfect bein hazmanim, one of the hardest times of the year

just antoher note, you did win last night!!! last night the YH was beaten!!!!
but he couldn't take it sitting down, so he made you feel as if because you beat him last night you beat him forever, i think that was the mistake.
ONE DAY AT A TIME!!!
Hope this run last forever!!!!

hi

16 is great, van my hat off to you for being here and writing and stuggeling. But hey, I am 34, so please please don't say that about aveiros at 30.... It kind of hurts. Not to mention the old guys here... Some are really old, like 40 and more

Ok, look my respect to you for writing on your falls, it ain't easy, and it doesn't get easier to admit a fall. I just fell recently after uf a long streak. But as Dov said one time, 1 year or 13 years of sobriety is nothing compared to today's sobriety, he even said, that he would change today's sobriety for those 13 years... That kind of made me think, kind of humbled me.

Anyhow, please get up again, there is always some hope, just a little. Just enough for today, for the next 15 minutes. Let Hashem be the judge, just trust him today.

All the best to you. And hopefully I will do as I write.

Thanks! Sorry about the 30 thing... I'll edit my post and take it out.

Right, so I've picked myself up, dusted myself off and I'm ready to start out again. Yeserday's fall still hurts- not least because it was so unexpected- but thanks so much to everyone who was mechazek me. I'm not expecting great things, but every day counts. So here goes.
Have an amaziing Shabbos everyone.

hey a gut shabbes too you too.

P.S. No need to edit it

I had a beuatiful thought which I wanted to share with everyone here.
I went on a Shabbaton this Shabbos with a group of friends. Baruch Hashem, it was a beautiful Shabbos, but I was feeling a bit down. You know, the standard thoughts- what am I doing here, I'm living a double life, I'm lying to everyone. Then, on Motzei Shabbos, the most amazing idea occured to me Hashem put the most amazing idea into my mind. Throughout the Shabbos, we'd been singing a song to the words from tehillim mem beis: צמאה נפשי לאלוקים לקל חי- My soul thirsts for Hashem, for the Living G-d. And I thought- that's why I DO belong here. I'm not living a lie- because I want to be better, I so desperately want to bring Hashem into my life.
And that applies to all of us here on GYE. We are intrinsically good people, with a powerful Yetzer Hara. That's all. But ultimately, we want to get better, and we want to reach the heights.

Dear Zvi (is that your first name?),

It is a beautiful thought! But...

I know many very frum and good men who are habitual and chronic porn users and masturbaters and have had great, really holy, spiritual weekends of growth much like the one you described. They really see the truth about their deep, real t'shukah for Hashem and kedusha, teshuvah, goodness, etc....and yet soon they (we) are back on their knees in the bathroom masturbating themselves after porning on the computer, again. While I am not diminishing the value of the experience and realization you describe, chaver, I believe that we all feel the deep t'shukah you describe - but being aware of it has not helped many of us in the long run. That is precisely why so many of us are here and not back with our noses in a sefer tehilim. It did not work.

So rather, I am trying to share this funny-sounding but serious twist with you:

People with lust addiction would benefit far, far more from a weekend during which we admitted to other safe, understanding people the sad truth in us that Hashem knows: "צמאה נפשי for sweet porn, and for the sweet way masturbating myself makes me feel." I have been at just such Shabbatons many times. Frum recovering sex and lust addicts get together for just that. And it helps them.

Admitting that and facing it squarely, is the very first step to letting go of it. While - for true addicts - focusing on our neshamos and holiness as Yidden instead of openly facing the immediate truth about ourselves, can simply be blissful ignorance.

When Chaza"l said to run from sin "k'boreiach min ha'esh" - they certainly did not mean to run from the truth!

Now don't get me wrong, here. I am not implying that you are an addicts and need this. I maintain (as I always have) that you and most people posting on GYE are probably not addicts, at all. But for those who are (as I am), admitting and knowing the immediate Truth is the sweetest thing there is. Self-honesty is far sweeter and more powerful than our lust is. And many of us have discovered that we only get better when we admit the truth openly to other safe, real people. Till we do that, it's useless information. It's first b'ficho, only then bilvov'cho, la'asoso.

Thanks Dov for your beutiful reply. Firstly, yes, Zvi is my first name, the name eveyone calls me.
And secondly, with only the greatest of respect, I think you may have misundertood me. What you appeared to think I was saying was that desiring Hashem and a connection to him is part of recovery in and of itself. (I may have got you wrong, so correct me if I have.)
What I was trying to say is that we are not leading a double life. As I wrote on my first ever post on the forum (on the introduction board) in school I'm one of the class frummers. The guy who davens the long shemoneh esrei, the guy who people can look up to. Indeed, I've been told many times that people wouldn't suspect me of doing anything wrong in this area. Once, in a q&a session with one of my Rebbeim, he mentioned something about looking at innapropriate pictures on the Internet. As a joke, someone immediately goes 'Zvi'. I obviously didn't say anything at the time, but it hurt so so much. I've had times, like a lot of that Shabbaton, when I've felt like a fake, like I'm tricking people. Tricking my Rebbeim, tricking my friends, and even tricking my parents. But this past Shabbos, I realised- I'm not tricking anyone! The attempt to get close to Hashem is the ikkar, the 'other things' are an unfortunate tofel.
Maybe I'm not speaking for addicts. I wouldn't know. Since joining GYE, I've come to realise that I'm probably not an addict- 'just' a teenager with a large problem. But for anyone in my situation, this, I feel is the 100% emes.
Dov, forgive me if I've misunderstood you.

I think all dov is trying to tell you is that you will gain far more by revealing the exact nature of your problem to a safe person than you will by comforting yourself that you really are a great guy (which I am sure you are ).

You will end the double life, and have one wonderful life (with a bit of work of course).

Dear Zvi,

I am not assuming you are like me, an addict. Addicts are surely in the minority among people who have used porn or masturbated themselves (which most people have done at times). And when you say that you have come to realize deeply that "The attempt to get close to Hashem is the ikkar, the 'other things' are an unfortunate tofel," I agree of course...but the relevant issue is this: does that realization actually help you stay clean today, or not?

If it does, then great. But if it does not, it would not surprise me in the least.

I firmly believe that when I feel an awareness of the prettiness and feminine power of a strange woman and feel the draw towards checking her out or using her image for fantasy in my heart and mind....what is really going on is this:

I am a yid. My neshomah is tahora and bears the personal awareness and actual memory of the infinite beauty and pashtus of G-d. It desires above all else to attach ONLY AND ALWAYS to Him even to the extent of leaving my body! But as a man (combined neshoma/body) who happens to be a sex and lust addict (surely in the minority of men) as well, I am confused. My body and heart tell me that the women I see that fit the right description are wonderful, powerful - and essential for me. Every time I ever acted out with sex with myself or with fantasy, my heart and body were telling me "this very thing here is what you really, really need now!" In other words, that it was in my own personal best interest to attach myself to her or her image.

You say "other things are the unfortunate tofeil" - I say that they are far less than tofeil - and far more. They are far less in that they are not tofeil, but a fake. The beauty of a woman is attractive to me becs it is a substitute for nothing less than the Sh'chinah hakedosha itself! It's like avodah zora was in the old days. Deveikus is in sex - a fake deveikus. Like a monkey 'aping' a person, a kof (monkey) - which is Amalek ("amal kof", as the sforim tell us). It is not tofeil, but a fake.

Yet it is also far more than a tofeil...to the adict in the moment. Once he or she takes the first drink, he is sold. The hard-wiring kicks in and he believes with a perfect faith that she is essential. This is the collective experience of all addicts to alcohol, gambling, sex, lust, and heroin. The first drink changes our hearts and we will then be fooled - convinced we need it. And then all the enlightenment and true deep religious feelings you refer to will drop like lead into the toilet bowl - "gotta go and get that..."

Now, telling myself that "if Hashem says it is NOT in my best interest, then it must obviously be bad for me," is just useless information at that time.
In the end, we addicts are the people who simply need to suffer enough to quit. Figuring it all out will not help them. We are actually perhaps the most spiritual of mankind (and Jewry!)...but it does not help. It actually is partt of our provblem and neediness itself, it seems.

Will they come to enlightenment through your information? Yes! But they will continue the same behavior eventually nonetheless and will keep getting worse and worse anyhow. And they will hate being that way. Nu. Go figure. But that's me. And I have been clean today and sober for years by Hashem's Chessed (that's 'Grace') that I of course do not deserve (cuz if it is deserved help, then it is Din, not Chessed, at all!).

Does this help at all? Do you need the help at all any more? Or are things all OK now for you?

It does help... I think. Just to clarify: You're saying that the lusting is an attempt in itself, albeit a failed one, to get close to Hashem?